Serendipity35

Reading on the http://onlinelearningconsortium.org website, we find the latest annual update from the Babson Research Group, which has tracked online education in the US since 2002. The quick takeaway is that online courses continue to increase in popularity even as higher education enrollment in the country in general is dropping.

Some key points:

A year-to-year 3.9% increase in the number of distance education students, up from the  3.7% rate recorded last year.

More than one in four students (28%) now take at least one distance education course.

The total of 5.8 million fall 2014 distance education students is composed of 2.85 million taking all of their courses at a distance and 2.97 million taking some, but not all, distance  courses.

Public institutions command the largest portion of distance education students, with 72.7%  of all undergraduate and 38.7% of all graduate?level distance students.

The proportion of chief academic leaders that say online learning is critical to their long? term strategy fell from 70.8% last year to 63.3% this year.

The percent of academic leaders rating the learning outcomes in online education as the  same or superior to those in face?to?face instruction is now at 71.4%.

But that continued growth is not matched by the responses of faculty. If you accept "academic leaders" as speaking for their faculty, then the idea that only 29.1% of academic leaders report that their faculty accept the “value and legitimacy  of online education” is not impressive. However, take note that it depends on what faculty you are asking. Among schools with the largest distance enrollments, 60.1% report  faculty acceptance. Only 11.6% of faculty show acceptance at those schools with no distance enrollments. 

Weaker e-learning enthusiasm with faculty is a data point that has not changed much since the survey began.

Growth in online education is not based on it being better or equal to traditional classrooms. Growth is based on access. Students want more freedom in when and where they get their education and online programs (particularly fully online programs and degrees) allow learners to complete a program they couldn’t otherwise.